


skin and bone

by nightflower



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Comfort, Exhaustion, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:07:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22407709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightflower/pseuds/nightflower
Summary: "He knew it was Daisy before she pulled open the door. Jon wasn't particularly surprised by this; Daisy was the only one willing to spend any time with him these days."*A quiet evening in the Archives.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 5
Kudos: 121





	skin and bone

**Author's Note:**

> I just marathoned this podcast and I have a lot of feelings.
> 
> Title from lovely by Billie Eilish & Khalid, which is what I listened to while writing this.

A gentle knock at the door pulled Jon's attention away from the statement in his hands. He knew it was Daisy before she pulled open the door. Jon wasn't particularly surprised by this; Daisy was the only one willing to spend any time with him these days. Still, he'd never turned her away, and she had good reason to enter confidently. 

Daisy moved much more carefully than she had before the coffin. Perhaps careful wasn't the right word - she had always been precise. She'd had the economy of movement required for any hunter worth their salt. Now she moved with a new awareness of the fragility of her own flesh and bone. Jon understood why Basira was... disconcerted.

"Alright?" he asked, tracking her entry - her slight hesitation just inside the threshold. She was studying him in turn, taking in his office and the papers in his hands. A tape recorder had materialized sometime before she'd knocked, and was already whirring away on his desk, waiting for the offering of his words. 

"Yeah," Daisy said, soft. Tired. Jon squinted at her, questions building in his throat. 

"Yeah," Daisy repeated, more firmly, shutting the door behind her.

The questions still lurked behind Jon's closed mouth. He fought with himself for a moment, longing to ask them. How are you, really? How was the physical therapy going? Did Basira go with? But he couldn't be sure that the words would come out as friendly concern or a monstrous need to Know. So instead he smiled faintly - maybe grimaced - and nodded sharply. She would tell him if she wanted to. He hoped. 

"Are you?" Daisy asked, interrupting Jon's spiraling thoughts. 

"What?" 

"You look like you haven't slept in... Well, a long time. And you could use a shower." 

Jon sniffed indignantly, shifting in his chair. She was probably right, of course. But... Work to be done. "I'm fine." 

"Right," Daisy said, sounding skeptical. She sighed, then stepped further into the room, boots thumping on the tile. "I'll just... be over here. Keep doing what you're doing."

It felt different, strange, when there was someone listening to him read a statement. He supposed he always felt watched when he read them, but it was different to know there was someone human - well, more human - watching. Jon had enough self awareness to know what it must look like. He knew now, had known for awhile, that the way the words narrowed his world to just ink on paper and the whir of tape was unsettling from the outside. 

But he hadn't turned Daisy away, and he wouldn't start now. Jon knew what it was like, in the crushing dark. He dreamed his own dreams about it, and he had only been down there for days, not months.

As Daisy took up her habitual position in the corner of the room, Jon turned back to his statement and settled in to read. The world faded as the words painted a picture for him. A man stepped into the cloak room at a museum and found there was no way out, who walked for miles and miles in an endless collection of coats... Who found a hundred twists and turns and doors that led to more of the same... 

"End statement," Jon pronounced, and it was like a weight was lifted from his shoulders and a presence from the room. Hunger still burned in him, but he felt a new clarity as he set the pages down. The recorder clicked off by itself. This particular statement hardly needed a followup, as the Spiral was clearly the cause. He could go ask Helen, if he was so inclined. He wasn't. 

But there was other work to be done, so Jon pulled one of the teetering stacks of files on his desk toward him. Daisy was leaning against the wall now, tapping at her cellphone.

"Are you, uh, sure you don't want a chair?" Jon asked. 

He was unsurprised when he got a terse no in response.

Jon grabbed a file from the top of the stack and flipped it open, skimming the statement inside. These statements all featured aspects of the Lonely. Considering Martin's - or, rather, _their_ situation, he wanted to know more. He wasn't planning on doing anything, but. It couldn't hurt. To be more prepared. 

"Not going to sleep anytime soon, huh?" Daisy asked abruptly.

Jon glanced up, confused. "Why would I be - ah. Hm. "

It seemed to Jon that time seemed to pass in strange bursts in the Archives; it was well past 11pm, but it didn't feel like that much time had passed. Jon shifted in his seat, considering. His back hurt from sitting for so long. His eyes stung from hours staring at small print. But there was still so much to do. 

"I, uh. Mm. No, not quite yet, I think."

"Well, I'm going to sleep," Daisy said, sounding exasperated. Jon watched her as she let herself out of his office, then turned back to his desk. 

Jon pored over the statements, making notes and trying to ignore his exhaustion. And his hunger. He felt the prickling urge to record another statement, but he didn't want to, not really. Didn't _need_ to, not yet. Eventually, Jon found himself sitting up with his eyes closed, mind wandering, and he sighed wearily. He'd keep researching, he thought to himself as he leaned forward, cushioning his head on his arms. In a couple minutes. 

His dreams, when he was not watching others relive their darkest days, were of his own bones creaking under the pressure of the earth. The taste of dirt on his tongue, and the breath stolen from his lungs.

When he woke, pulling air into his lungs with panicked gasps, he fumbled for a moment before he realized where he was. Institute, his office. At his desk, where he'd slept because he was begging for back pain, apparently.

Jon's grasping fingers found something soft and he grunted in surprise, trying to see - oh. A thin, worn-looking blanket has been draped around his shoulders. It was a cotton blend, dyed a pale shade of blue. He didn't need the Eye to tell him who it belonged to, and who put it around his shoulders while he slept. That thought dispelled the last vestiges of terror lingering after the dream. Jon couldn't quite keep the smile off his face, small though it was. 

He stood from his desk and stretched - which served to wipe the smile away as his body yelled at him for sleeping folded up over his desk. He... Hadn't slept for as long as he needed to, probably. It was early yet, early enough that there probably wasn't anyone wandering the archives. When Jon left his office to scrounge up a cup of tea and maybe some breakfast, he kept the blanket draped around his shoulders.


End file.
